Some Thoughts About Filemaker's Future

Over the years, in my opinion, Filemaker has evolved from a personal, individual, easy to use relational database into an expensive complex, somewhat bloated enterprise level product now targeted toward developers with the intent of having it as a platform for the creation of 'canned' applications for profit. While Filemaker does run in the Windows environment, given the competition to it in that arena, it is likely that its primary platform is still the Mac or IOS. Since IOS apps only become significantly profitable in a minority of circumstances, the opportunity for significant returns on investments still seems to be focused on the Mac in the enterprise arena.

Now consider the requirements of the latest and future versions of MacOS which require 64bit architecture and METAL GPU's. This effectively obsoletes any still functional and useful machines from staying current with MacOS and future revisions of all Mac apps, including Filemaker, are likely to limit their operation to these new architecture requirements coercing enterprise to purchase new machines to support these apps. Add to this equation the fact that Apple has significantly increased the cost of owning such machines, most of which now have closed architecture, forcing users to pay exorbitant costs for such things as memory and storage from Apple. Additionally the expected base price for the new modular MacPro Desktop is expected to be over 6K. Finally the price for IOS devices is now reaching over 1K for some of the units.

All this leads me to the conclusion that the enterprise market for the new MacPro Desktop is likely suffer and become a niche market as enterprise, government and education considers the cost of such machines and likely opts for their Windows and Linux equivalents, except for specialized applications. Additionally IOS devices are becoming less affordable for the general public. Such pricing strategies are likely to place company wide usage of these products out of the reach of small business as well.

So the question becomes how will this all effect Filemaker? I am of the opinion that as this hardware paradigm is implemented, the demand for Filemaker apps, and the developer demand for Filemaker licenses will diminish. Given its price point and complexity, Filemaker is currently no longer attractive to personal end user development. Therefore it is likely that Filemaker as a product will become significantly less profitable for both developers and the company.

This now raises the question as to what Apple's response to this outcome will be. Given that Filemaker is essentially a single product company, will Apple at some point, realizing that it is no longer a significant contributor to Apple's value, perhaps even a loss, shut it down? From a marketing perspective, I suspect few users ever purchase Mac's or IOS devices so that the can run Filemaker. Besides, they can run it on Windows for 1/3 the cost or less. So, given its licensing costs and a likely shrinking marketplace how with Filemaker retain existing developers and attract new ones?

I feel that these are considerations that Filemaker developers and Filemaker should be thinking about as they plan for the future. Hopefully my assumptions and conclusions are incorrect and that their still is a bright future for Filemaker. However if I just happen to be correct…

Thank you for your feedback.I did scan your suggestion and while I did see some improvements to the tools within the product I saw no mention of improving the GUI, or a mention of version for individual or personal users. Given that the cutoff point of the next version is High Sierra, I suspect the following version will likely require MacOS 10.14 or later thus any machines without METAL capability and running 64 bit apps will be excluded.

Currently I own two 'cheese graters' and an older iMac which work just fine for my needs. I have always regarded the current MacPro Desktop as a souped up, overpriced, miniMac in a design winning architecture. That is why I never upgraded to one. Enterprise first considerations for new machines generally are performance, flexibility, and price, not how they look. Given all the Mac apps I own (over 500),

As suchI have few options other than a machine that will run Mac software. That said, should anyone ever come out with a reliable, solid Mac emulation package for Linux or Windows, soon after the new MacPro Desktop is released, that will likely be my new machine. Otherwise I first will be looking into a METAL and processor upgrade from OWC for my 2010 'cheese grater' or will have to, abet quite reluctantly, bite the bullet for the new MacPro Desktop. Much of the upgrade decision will be based on if MacOS checks the Mac ROM for upgrades or the actual installed hardware. If it is the former, I'm screwed.

With respect to single-user products, I'm afraid that ship has sailed. There are 100s of macOS and iOS apps available to take care of most individuals' needs. FileMaker can't compete against free and low-cost apps in the App Store and, rightly (IMO), have chosen to focus more on workgroups and mid-size business solutions.

Regarding a $6K Mac Pro or iMac Pro, I don't think Apple is driving its users there. Those are highly tuned machines for highly specialized users. Business apps don't require 8 cores of anything. For a server, sure. For a user? A dual/quad-core consumer Mac will handle anything a user is likely to throw at it. Heck, I'm building Swift (iOS) apps in Xcode with a dual-core 2012 MacBook Pro Retina, with 8GB of RAM. I'll grant you the entry price point for desktops is now $799 (Mac mini), so the cost is indeed higher than the previous $499 mini. And while new minis and iMacs do have user-upgradable RAM, I'll also concede that today's systems are more closed. As an ACN, I used to do a lot of break/fix work for Mac users, and that's all dried up.

[A]s this hardware paradigm is implemented, the demand for Filemaker apps, and the developer demand for Filemaker licenses will diminish.

The demand will increasingly be for mobile apps. FileMaker-based or otherwise. The Data API can play a critical role here. iOS and Android devs making apps to move record data into/out of FileMaker solutions. That's where we're heading, IMO. High school and college kids are consuming – and building – mobile apps. We need to provide these folks a conduit to FileMaker Server, which is what the Data API is all about.

[W]hat Apple's response to this outcome will be. [...] How will Filemaker retain existing developers and attract new ones?

Developers will do what they've always done. Adapt. Mac classic devs had to learn Objective-C. macOS and iOS devs will eventually have to embrace Swift. Old-school, plain-text HTML developers (like myself) had to learn javascript and how to build mobile-friendly websites. CDML developers (also, me) had to learn PHP in order to get FileMaker v9 data out to the web.

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I understand some of the concern expressed in your post. To be honest, in the past I've worried about FMI falling too far behind. They didn't seem to have a good answer to creating native mobile apps, and no modern API to attract new developers. I'm happy to see FMI addressing this with the iOS App SDK and Data API, so I think the future is as bright as it's probably ever been. A few years ago, I'm not sure that was the case.